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In Love With Writing

In Elizabeth Berg's wonderful book, Escaping Into the Open: The Art of Writing True, she says, "What you have to be is in love. With writing. Not with ideas about what to write; not with daydreams about what you're going to do when you're successful. You have to be in love with writing itself, with the solitary and satisfying act of sitting down and watching something you hold in your head and your heart quietly transform itself into words on a page." It must be love - I can't seem to get enough of it!

Mad Hatters Party August 08

Cats

Oreo Cushman at home

Mary with Snickers

Leros, Greece #2

Mamacita at Off Square Books, Oxford

Cat at Seagrove Beach May 09

Snickers Thames, Gulfport, MS

Leros, Greece

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

No Time for Baking

I’ve been thinking about prayer today. Maybe because of what happened yesterday. I lost my cell phone and mentioned my plight on my Facebook page. Several friends responded with good advice about reporting it, getting a replacement, etc. I ordered a replacement phone at 5 p.m. Monday and it arrived at 1 p.m. Tuesday! With only a $50 deductible, I’ve got a brand new Blackberry Pearl just like the one that was lost/stolen.

So, when I realized it was missing, I immediately made the sign of the cross and said, “Lord help me.” Then I proceeded to ask people for help. My daughter had the quickest most practical advice. But when I looked at my Facebook status, I noticed more than one of my Orthodox friends said to pray to St. Phanourios.

By that time I was on my way to solving the problem, and didn’t want to take the time to bake a cake, which is the tradition when St. Phanourios helps you find a lost object. So, I just left him out of my prayers. And even when I prayed, “Lord help me,” I didn’t actually say, “help me find my cell phone,” or “help me get another one quickly,” or anything specific. Just, “Lord, help me.”

I think it’s a practice I’ve developed as an Orthodox Christian which differs greatly from my prayer life as a Protestant.

As a child growing up in the Presbyterian Church, I memorized the Lord’s Prayer, but it was really the only liturgical prayer I remember being taught. During my teen years, I was involved in Bible study groups and youth groups in various churches, and I was introduced to “spontaneous” prayer, a practice which I continued into my college years, even writing some of them down in notebooks.

So why did this St. Phanourios thing trip me up yesterday? He’s one of many saints that Orthodox Christians have traditionally prayed to for help with specific needs for generations. And yet, somehow this tradition harks back to the Protestant tradition of asking for specific things when you pray. Or at least that’s the way I remember it. Like, “Please help me make an A on this test,” or “Please let so-and-so (a boy) love me back.” When I have a headache, I don’t usually pray to St. John the Baptist to cure it. Instead, I usually take two Tylenol and try to take a break from the computer or the heat or whatever activity I’m doing. And yes, sometimes I say, “Lord, have mercy,” and I cross myself.

All this got me to thinking about how Jesus taught us to pray. When teaching men to pray, Christ said,

Pray then like this: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. (Matthew 6:9-13, cf Luke 11:2-4)

Of course Christians from both Eastern and Western traditions embrace the Lord’s Prayer, but I wonder if we “interpret” it differently? The only place in this prayer where we ask for something that could be interpreted as a physical need is when we say, “give us this day our daily bread.” But some Orthodox saints explain that part of the prayer as us asking for something spiritual.

“St. Isidore Pelousiotes says: The prayer which the Lord taught does not contain anything earthly, but everything is heavenly and looks to the profit of the soul, even that which appears to be unimportant and sensible.”

Other theologians say that the prayer can mean both, give us our spiritual bread, which is Christ, but also our physical bread, which can mean food, clothes, houses, cell phones….

I love how we say, “Lord, have mercy” about a hundred times during the Divine Liturgy in the Orthodox Church, because that’s what we always need—mercy. And truthfully, we don’t always know what’s best for us, but God does.

What’s your approach to prayer? Do you routinely ask God for specific things—a job for your son, a healthy birth for your first grandchild, success on exams for your kids in school, your house to sell? I’ve certainly prayed for those specific things at times, but then I always think, “so, what does it mean if I get the thing I prayed for…. or if I don’t?”

My spiritual father has a saying that I love: “Pray and do the right thing.” It’s synergistic—us working together with God. Maybe that’s what I’m trying to learn. Good thing we’ve got a lifetime here on earth to practice.

3 comments:

Ah, Susan-these just keep getting better & better. I'm tripping out that you were writig this about prayer when I just yesterday finally found an answer I'd been searching for awhile-why pray? I can't copy & paste here but answer I found, I wrote as my current fbook status. Awesome. And I know we're cosmically linked. KT asked if I'd stolen the Bonnie Tyler thing from your blog, ha, & I hadn't even seen that post yet. Looks like we're 2 for 2 lately on being on the same wavelength. Miss u much, keep writing & I'll keep trying to send you some readers.

i pray for specific things all the time, depending on what i need. if i know i need something specific, and i think about it during prayer, then i pray about it. and i do pray for things i just "want," but part of me doesn't like to do that because it's like "getting my hopes up," haha.

but i pray for God's will to be done, even as i request certain things. if i get what i asked for, then it was His will. if not, then i'm still getting God's will, which will turn out better than what i wanted anyway.

bottom line is, i don't think it's bad to pray about a cell phone, as long as one does it with a heart that is submissive to God's perfect plan. in fact, i think the more we pray about little AND big things, no matter how insignificant they seem, the closer we get to God.

Thanks for commenting, Michelle and Katie! This morning I noticed two saints who are commemorated by the Orthodox Church on this date are Cosmos and Damien, "holy unmercenaries"... physicians and healers who offered their services without pay. As I leave for Jackson to take my mother to a doctor visit, I asks their prayers, "Holy Cosmos and Damien, have mercy on my mother." But I'm not inclined to ask, "Please let her walk again" when she's in a wheelchair with a hip that didn't heal from surgery because she has Alzheimer's and can't understand how to participate in physical therapy. At 81 in her situation, I ask for "mercy" and "comfort" for her, in whatever form that comes.